Blur
by Aelita Dash
Summary: You wake up in the middle of the night from a bad dream and drift back to sleep, only to reawaken in a nightmarish forest. Unsure if it's real or fantasy, you're quickly pursued by a vague figure in the middle of a furious blizzard. How could you possibly escape?


You wake up in the middle of the night in a room that's not your own. The nightmarish figures of your dreams are still fresh in your mind, and your eyes dart around wildly. After the initial shock, you are able to reassure yourself that it's a sleepover and you're perfectly fine. You glance at your snoring friend and chuckle a little, then check the time on your phone. It's 2:17 in the morning, which isn't much considering you crashed at 12. So you just yawn, relax, and go back to sleep.

"Ugh..." You groan as you try to awaken yourself. You stretch and grunt as you sit yourself up and then open your eyes. You're outside... How the hell did this happen? It's very cold... You knew something wasn't right when you were regaining consciousness! Fear fills your body, speeding up your heart rate and breathing. You clutch at the freezing cold ground in agony and curl up into a ball, shivering as the frosty wind blows.

"Okay... I just need to think..." You say, but not meaning to say out loud. But you continue like that anyway. "W-Where am I?"

You investigate your surroundings. There are tall, thin trees all around you and dead grass on the ground that's partially coated in snow. But other than that, all you can see is white. Snowflakes hurl themselves mindlessly in your direction. There's no real way to tell where you are. You feel for your phone in your jeans pockets, but there's nothing in there but lint. A pathetic tear rolls down your cheek and you think back to last night's dream. The figures flash in your head, and the whispers seem to echo around the woods.

You let out a yelp and jump to your feet. You run, and it's a mad-dash to get... Well, anywhere but here. You think you see movement among the trees, but you're not sure what it could be. A couple of leaves, a crow, maybe? The strange visions only urge you to charge faster. Each object that comes into vision is nothing but another tree that towers over you, and seems to lean in. A canopy of dead branches has been formed above you. A tear lets itself through your other eye, and soon you're full-out crying. You have absolutely no memory from the events leading up to you being there. You keep running and running until finally... You collapse onto the freezing earth.

Sobbing into the ground, you're a complete mess. It seems like hours that you sit there, until frost starts to form on your body. With each hyperventilated breath your muscles grow weaker, and your vision fades. Before you pass out, you think you can dizzily see something lunge towards you like a bird diving for its prey. The figure is human-shaped, but there's something really... off about it. You can't place your finger on it, but you don't think whatever it is is an actual person. At least, that's what you can tell before blacking out. Still susceptible though, you think you can hear a couple loud noises, and you feel someone or some_thing _lift you up. You're not dead- at least you don't think so, yet- and it's really more like sleep paralysis. Just stronger.

Once again, you wake up with amnesia. You remember the previous events of the woods, but still no memory of before. This time everything is just really dark. You hold up your right hand, still numb from the cold, and begin to loosen it by wiggling your fingers. You flex your wrist and try to calm yourself down, ignoring your throbbing headache. You take another look around.

It's obvious that you're indoors now, because you're not as cold and you can see a window about 15 feet away from where you're sitting. Sitting?... You're in a chair! It's a comfortable recliner with soft cushions. You sigh a little in relief. Maybe the forest was just a dream? But that can't be true, because you're still chilly from before. You sneeze out loud, and it echoes around the room. Hm. It doesn't seem like anyone's here right now. They could be outside. Or, of course, they're too busy to come to you. Maybe they didn't hear you. Or they just don't care.

For a little while, you stare out the window, lost in thought. You're not really sure what to do. The snow is coming down in flurries, blustering and swaying with the branches of the trees. A hand shoots up quickly, or is it a hand!? It has an otherworldliness to it, and it's black with several smaller "fingers" protruding from it. It swipes around blindly at the window, slowing down when it notices the glass. You want to scream, and know you would, but you can't make any noise. You've gone completely mute. Everything in your peripheral vision is being clouded by shadows, and once again, terror kicks in.

Your arms protectively shoot up towards your chest and face at first, but then the startling factor wears off and now it's all adrenaline. You want to race off, but you're not sure whether to go towards the attacker or away from it. You make a quick and somewhat hasty decision. Speeding towards the window, you decide to face the beast and thrust open the window. You can instantly feel the unnerving presence.

The creature enters, swaying inside as a black, writhing, shadow-like mass. You're not even really sure if it's made of matter. It seems to go through all objects. It hovers above you and whooshes away, swirling and formulating into a solid object. Letting out only a few high-pitched noises, you force yourself to slowly move back…


End file.
